Day 394

Dear Family and Friends,

 Well we are coming up on transfers here in the Peru Cuzco mission and i am all ready to go here in the office.  this last week got pretty hectic but i survived haha so my companion Elder Corredor is now leaving the office and his replacement is already here Elder Gallardo from Panamá and he will be my new companion.  he is coming up on 6 months in the mission and is a good worker.  he will be a great secretary here in the mission office.  well Elder Green the basketball player from Utah state as well is heading out from the office and his replacement has arrived as well Elder Arteaga from Guatemala but when he was ten years old his family moved to the states and so he speaks English and Spanish naturally.  another kinda of side note that i just remembered is that there is and Elder Tavoian from cedar city in our mission I'm not sure if anybody knows him but ya haha today is kinda lonely here in the office because more then half of the missionaries went to machu picchu in the morning and they wont get back till later tonight.  this last sat we had a wonderful baptism of a part member family a few photos are attached but I'm not in any of them :( i have to copy some from elder green's camera but hes not here today. here is a little about the family and Boris who was baptized.

(A little idea that i wanted to do for all the converts)

Profile: Boris Alcides Montoya Cordova

Boris is father of one child (Caleb 5 yrs old) his son love Michael Jackson.  he is always trying to learn new dance moves and show them off.  His wife Hacely has been a member for a long time but has been less active the last few years.  Boris and his wife work in the same place together.  they are wonderful family and they have always tried to do what they think is right.  they live in a very modest home and have blessed by the lord in there finanzas.  i would say they both are close to 30 yrs old.  Boris is a very humble guy and talks really calmly.  his likes to get ready really slow in the morning and arrive late to all his meetings (just like dad :P) haha and his wife is always complaining about it (just like mom) haha

i decided to share a little about the lives of people who are just like you and me. if you think about being in the same position as them but without having the gospel in your life how would it be? we all have day to day problems that don't seem like a big deal to us because we have the big picture and we know what our final goal is.  but if you can imagine what it would be like to have all those things add up and not have the knowledge of why we have to go through those things in our lives.  it would be really easy to complain to god and blame him for all our problems.  but by sharing the gospel we can help other come to know the plan god has created for us.  and just the knowledge of that will help us get through the toughest of times.  i know it has helped me a lot in my life and in the mission.  Some say that i have got over the hump haha I'm not sure if that means how fast time flies or what but all i do know is that spiritually i have hit any hump and i don't want to.  i would rather keep keep climbing the hill and learning more and more.  i don't want to plateau that is my worry.  I LOVE YOU ALL and keep up the good work.  and keep writing me even though i have a year in the mission doesnt mean that im sick of letters haha

Elder Wilkinson

Day 390

Family and Friends,

 

Hello Everybody!!! well sorry for the little wait on the letter :( this tues we are going to be having transfers and so i got a little backed up with all the office work trying to prepare everything for transfers.  But now everything has settled down and we should be all ready to go next week.  Well so the news for this past week the has been a elder in the office with us for almost two weeks that has kidney stones (Elder Matute).  and they arent super small from the x-rays they say they are close to 7 MM in diameter.  he has been in quite a bit of pain and couldnt even walk very well.  well the good news is he is going to get treated in the mission and doesnt have to go home, but the bad news is that he had to go to lima where they have better doctors.  so that one photo with him is from this morning when we dropped him off at the airport.  he should come back in a month or two ready to get back to work.  well also because he was leaving and was kinda depressed about leaving his mission and not being able to do anything president invited the office and Elder Matute to go out and eat.  So those other photos of us in the restaurant are from last night where we went to eat Rodizio (Unlimited meat on shish kabobs) yep just like Tucanos in northern utah.  i think i ate a whole cow, and i aint lying haha but it was the bomb!!! that is one of the bonuses of being in the office :) well the next thing is that we have started playing ping pong on p-days because almost all the churches have ping pong tables and we never thought about using them till now haha i think somebody said hey does anybody like ping pong? and like everybody in the office said they played before the mish so we said well why not and started playing and then told the stake president that always played soccer with us before and he said he also played ping pong,  and boy does he play haha i would say he is better than dad, ya dad thats right haha but i have been improving a ton playing with them and im pretty sure i could skool mitch now haha but ill keep practicing and we'll see after the mission :P well the last thing would just be that last night when we were eating President Calderón told us that Elder Holland was in Valle Sagrado which is like an hour from cusco.  im not sure if he was just messing with us or what but it would be pretty awesome if he ends up passing by the mission office!! alrighy so i think that is all for the week so until next week take care and i love you all!!

 

Photos:

 

-From the night that we had our one year celebration

-more pictures from Smile Network International

-Vive el Perú

-Abrazador - Rodizio (Pineapple)

-Elder Matute and I

-Ping Pong

 

Videos:

 

-Ping Pong

-Wayqui (it means brother in quechua, but the missionaries call the native descendents of the incas wayquis as well because they dress like i am dressed in the video(kinda) and always are carrying stuff on their backs)

 

Elder Wilkinson